Customer Reviews

Recreational Gold Prospecting for Fun & Profit

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In preparation for an upcoming fulfillment of my dad's lifelong desire to do "real" gold prospecting, I researched many articles on Gold Prospecting, visited Sutters' Gold Discovery State Park on a recent vacation to Northern California, and purchased various books on the subject. This book, Recreational Gold Prospecting for Fun & Profit, seemed to encompass the most information and give good, solid advice that resonated through other sources. I've always wondered why anyone would shared their prospecting secrets - but the author comes across as a true advocate. Having been involved in other pursuits (elected public office, karate, guest speaker at PSU, etc.), I have found that the best advice is given by those who truely appreciate the activity and feel that they owe others the benefit of their experiences. Gail appears to be such a mentor to all of us want-to-bes. I would recommend this book be one of your initial sources on gold prospecting.

I've never broken even over many years of prospecting and searching for the Lost Adams Diggings. But I wouldn't trade a moment of it. This book will help the reader by giving an excuse to go into the wilderness. The first time you look into the bottom of a pan and see glitter will be a moment you'll remember the remainder of your life. Buy it and do it!

I thoroughly enjoyed Gail Butler's book. Sometimes I felt as if I was there with here. Its an easy read and very instructional. It makes me want to go to California or Arizona and start digging, panning and nugget detecting. If you have only been coin shooting and want to know what it is like to prospect and detect for gold this book is a great one. Read it.

I was thoroughly impressed with this book. It went into great detail concerning all of the basic aspects of prospecting. It is also a great book for an intermediate level prospector that just wants to have a good resource book. This book was one of the first that I had purchased and is still one of the better books (information wise) out there for this level. It is very well written, in that it is a fun book to read, while at the same time educating yourself about the great hobby!

This is one of the most informative books out there on this subject. It is comprehensive. I have gone back and read parts of it several times. You need to go out and do this and come back and read the book again. Besides giving lots of tips about finding gold she has a great chapter that deals with how modern prospecting actually aids the environment and keeps our streams cleaner and healthy for fish. She covers all the bases and gives valuable insight about what works best. She also makes it clear the adventure itself is very rewarding whether you find a speck or an ounce.

This is the first book I purchased on Gold Prospecting and I hit "Paydirt" with it and the author. How many author's do you know that started prospecting when they were 10 years old? WoW, she sure knows what she is talking about. For example, the picture on page 28 showing how to properly size the type of gold pan to the size of each persons hand. Until I read this I didn't even know that a gold pans size made any difference one way or the other.

For the novice that is searching on how to get started with Gold Prospecting this book is outstanding. I am sure that I will keep coming back to this book to reread much of it. Some of her "Tips" about how to enhance ones chances of finding and keeping gold while out in the field are priceless and make this book worth more than the money that I spent to receive it.

Although I have only been just recently interested in prospecting for gold and made two trips to gold producing areas (California & Geogia) I found this book to be very helpful. It brought up many areas I had not thought of before and made the experience so much more enjoyable. The author really puts emotion into her lessons through her personal knowledge. It's as if she is talking to you one on one. If you are just getting into this exciting field for the first time, this is a must read and the information will save you lots of time and money if you put the author's advise to use. We are so used to this type of book being written by a man since we think of prospectors being men but this author has had more experience in the field then most of the other male authors books I have read previously. A great read for all.

I can only give this book 2 stars. I was disappointed in that in presenting her information she had to resort to man bashing at every opportunity. This might appeal to the prurient interest of like minded women, but hardly made much sense when trying to present information about a popular hobby to the general public. It detracts substantially from the book.

One section she attempted to present that because men were stronger than women, then women had more stamina than men and thus could eaqual the physical work output of any man. Not only is this a falsehood but the justification for this believe she tried to present was the belief that it was a fact that men could not handle the pain and stress of child birth than that proved that women had more stamina then men.

There are other such types of man bashing scattered through the book which really made for difficult reading for me.

Such sexism is not needed nor justified today and is hardly the way to get women interested in this wonderful hobby.

There are other better books available that present the same information in better format and easy reads than this book. I suggest passing on to one of them.

Being new to this hobby , this book was very informative and covered many questions that I had. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to cover all the aspects of prospecting for gold.

Gail Butler has written a great book for anyone that likes prospecting or want to give it a try. She goes into good detail on all aspects of the hobby. But can ramble a bit in a couple of chapters. Other than that its a must have, for your collection.